What Can Failure Teach You About The Creative Process?
“Far too often, playing it safe results in shiny, swirling, bland masses of ‘meh’. ”
Erik Kessels is a Dutch photographer, artist and designer.
He is also the co-founder of KesselsKramer, an award-winning creative agency with offices in Amsterdam, London and Los Angeles.
It’s famous, among other things, for its brilliantly refreshing work advertising the budget hotel chain Hans Brinker.
Undoubtedly, Erik is a creative titan who has achieved an enviable amount of career success.
Wisely, he credits this with having an open attitude to failure.
In his short but impactful book, Failed it!: How To Turn Mistakes Into Ideas And Other Advice For Successfully Screwing Up, he summarises some of his key insights on failure and the creative process.
We’ve picked some of our favourites below to inspire you to fail harder.
1. Your Mistakes Could Change The World
Some of the biggest cock ups have led to world-changing ideas.
Erik mentions the story of Professor Wilson Greatbatch, who was designing a device for recording heart rhythms.
He put the wrong electrical resistor into the machine and watched it pulse, stop and turn pulse again - like an actual heart.
This ‘mistake’ resulted in the invention of the pacemaker, which would save millions of lives.
As Erik says, “Just because something doesn't fulfil its original purpose, just because your initial calculations are off by a few degrees, does it mean the unexpected result won't lead to something resembling genius.”
2. Triumph Of The Amateur
Every industry has its ‘rules’.
Preconceived notions about what you can and can’t do.
By contrast, the novice’s greatest gift is naivety. They aren’t aware of the rules, so they’re not afraid to break them.
The result is ideas that are original and innovative.
Erik argues that one of the shortfalls of creative professionals is that they look to each other for inspiration.
All this achieves is a regurgitation of ideas.
Amateurs are ‘not saddled with ideas of ‘artistic precedent’ or ‘creative vision’.
They don’t care where their ideas take them, and you shouldn’t, either.
3. Confidence Is Overrated
The greatest artists tend to be riddled with insecurity.
Erik believes this is essential to the creative process.
Why?
Because coming up with ideas is a risky business.
People will challenge and critique your ideas. You will have moments of great doubt, and will fall out of love with your creation.
But you have to allow room for these feelings because they open the door to improving your ideas.
You just mustn’t let them become overwhelming.
4. Sharpen Your Gaze
You cannot wait for inspiration to strike.
While serendipity sounds romantic, the truth is you must keep your eyes open at all times to capture these unexpected moments.
You have to train yourself to sharpen your gaze and switch off your automatic pilot.
Be alert, put down your mobile phone, and pay attention to your environment.
As Erik says, “You can't predict the unexpected, but you can learn to recognise it”.
5. The Tyranny Of Perfection
Perfection is a mirage.
Striving for it will only make you feel miserable because it’s unachievable.
The famous American football coach Vince Lombardi once remarked, “We are going to relentlessly chase perfection, knowing full well we will not catch it...in the process we will catch excellence.”
In reality, imperfection is far more interesting. It’s the source of better ideas and the natural order of things.
So it’s time to free yourself from the tyranny of perfection!
As the famous cliche goes, “Don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good”.
6. Redesign Your Imagination
There are standard ways of doing things.
An accepted approach that everyone else uses.
The problem is that this leads to everything looking the same wherever you go.
The Italian designer Daniele Pario Perra challenges this phenomenon by deliberately using objects in the ‘wrong’ way.
He lets his imagination run wild and creates new uses for everyday products.
An electrical extension socket becomes a candle holder, film canisters are reenvisioned as salt and pepper shakers, and a plastic chair becomes a makeshift bicycle seat.
Take a leaf out of Daniele’s book and re-look at the things around you.
As Erik writes, “Nothing will limit your creativity more than sticking to what is appropriate or usual”.
7. Dare To Be Disliked
Social media has made us more self-conscious than ever before.
All we see is the highly curated feeds of other people living seemingly perfect lives. It makes us afraid to share ideas that don’t fit this mould.
But just think of all the brilliant ideas initially rejected by those supposedly in the know.
Twelve publishers passed up the first Harry Potter book before one company found the courage to believe in it.
You need to be confident in your own opinion and not give a monkey’s about what other people think.
If your ideas are good, they’ll find a way to survive.
8. Keep It Simple
Erik thinks that one of the most damaging bad traits of those in the creative world is their desire to overcomplicate things.
Far too much time is wasted trying to come up with groundbreaking ideas that make waves when a more straightforward solution is often better.
That’s why he suggests adhering to what engineers call the KISS principle.
Keep it Simple, Stupid.
Identify what is essential and eliminate the unnecessary.
Avoid wanky jargon or complicated language that can confuse others or complicate your message. Instead, use clear and concise language to communicate your ideas effectively.
And edit ruthlessly.
9. Make An Idiot Out Of Yourself
The late satirist Cynthia Heimel put it well when she said, “When in doubt, make a fool of yourself. There is a microscopically thin line between being brilliantly creative and acting like the most gigantic idiot on earth. So what the hell, leap.”
Why are we so resistant to making mistakes when they’re just part of being human?
Children spend all day making them and don’t feel self-conscious enough to notice.
As adults we need to learn to play more and be more forgiving of our perceived errors.
We must allow ourselves to feel like idiots frequently, for it’s the silly mistakes that help us learn and discover new avenues of thought.
As Erik states, “If you’re not making mistakes. If you’re not regularly feeling stupid. If you don’t believe your ideas are inadequate. If no one is arching an eyebrow while slowly, condescendingly asking why on earth you’re doing this. If your ideas aren’t routinely mocked when shared with those who follow the rules. You’re probably doing it wrong.”
10. Other People’s Rejects Can Become Your Masterpiece
You may have heard the proverb, “One man's trash is another man's treasure”.
This saying is particularly true of the creative process.
Generating good ideas involves developing mountains of bad ideas.
Rejects. Offcuts. Dead Ends.
Whatever you call them, the creative process has a colossal amount of waste. For every idea that makes it, hundreds are culled.
But someone else’s trash could become your treasure. An idea that fails in one context is given new life in another.
Just because someone has rejected something doesn’t mean it doesn’t have potential.
The trick is approaching everything with an open mind and looking for the gems hidden in someone else’s rubbish pile.
Erik’s book is enjoyable, and you can’t help but come away with the feeling that better ideas await if you become more comfortable with making mistakes.
Failure, it seems, is a great teacher, and with the right attitude, it becomes your stepping stone to success.
If all this talk of failure inspires you, you’ll love our ‘Creative Thinking’ course. Made in collaboration with some of the world’s greatest creative minds, it's packed with practical tools and tips to help unlock your creative potential.
